Prof. Tim Brennan will sit on the Energy Demand Roundtable to discuss ideas and policies to overcome Maryland’s energy challenges.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: July 24, 2007

CONTACT: Kavan Peterson
Office: 410-455-1896
Email: kavan@umbc.edu

BALTIMORE – University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) Economics Professor Tim Brennan, a nationally recognized expert on energy economics, will participate in the Governor’s Energy Summit on Wednesday, July 25, in Annapolis, Md.

Called by Gov. Martin O’Malley to spearhead his strategic energy plan, the summit will be 1 to 5 p.m. in the Miller Senate Office Building and will include Gov. O’Malley, and the state's top energy officials.

Brennan will sit on the Energy Demand Roundtable to discuss how best to reduce statewide energy consumption. As the only academic participating, Brennan will provide non-ideological expertise on the economics of energy policy.

“The most important thing that has to happen is to allow consumers to see electricity rates that reflect what electricity really costs, including the overall environmental costs and cost spikes during peak demand times,” such as hot summer afternoons, Brennan said.

Brennan is Professor of Public Policy and Economics at UMBC and a senior fellow at Resources for the Future, a Washington, D.C.-based institute on the environment and energy. Along with electricity markets, his research interests include antitrust, regulatory and environmental economics, telecommunications, intellectual property, and ethics in public policy. Brennan coauthored Alternating Currents: Electricity and Public Policy, which looks at the complex economic and regulatory policy issues raised by the restructuring of the electricity industry. During 1996-97 he was the senior staff economist for regulatory policy for White House Council of Economic Advisers, and during 2006 he held the T.D. MacDonald Chair in Industrial Economics at the Canadian Competition Bureau.

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